MSF?

[98hoya]

Has there been any development on the MSF project since the end of last season? When the football team begins the season this fall, will the stadium have any improvements over last season?

[DFW HOYA]

I'd guess no on both counts.

[98hoya]

Maybe we could invite the NY Times to do a follow-up story so Mr. Muir can explain the specific steps he's taken to follow through on his plans to build the program that he told the world about in the original article.

[BigMike]

Seems like the best approach to finding out what is going on is for someone who has the most interest in the issue -maybe a former player or donor to call the athletic department and just ask - then report back to the board.

[kokomoko]

Are they still trying to induce donations for it? I know many parents who made donations specified for the MSF; e.g, $2500 for a locker with a former player's name on it . Those that made such donations probably are not pleased. The MSF was a big recruiting draw on the late 90's and a while after that. It is pretty ridiculous it still is not completed.

[DFW HOYA]

Apr 5, 2008 12:41:00 GMT -5 kokomoko said:

Are they still trying to induce donations for it? I know many parents who made donations specified for the MSF; e.g, $2500 for a locker with a former player's name on it . Those that made such donations probably are not pleased. The MSF was a big recruiting draw on the late 90's and a while after that. It is pretty ridiculous it still is not completed.

You've said it as well as anyone.

[RBHoya]

Mar 26, 2008 19:56:29 GMT -5 @98hoya said:

Maybe we could invite the NY Times to do a follow-up story so Mr. Muir can explain the specific steps he's taken to follow through on his plans to build the program that he told the world about in the original article.

LOL at blaming Muir... He isn't a magician, he can't make money appear from nowhere. I'm pretty sure no athletic director in the world could fix the MSF mess.

[kokomoko]

The University ought to take some of its endowment money and just finish it. How much are they short? $10M ? In the big picture, it would help round out the University's overall reputation and would be a wise investment for the miniscule dollars.

[DFW HOYA]

Apr 5, 2008 14:52:32 GMT -5 kokomoko said:

The University ought to take some of its endowment money and just finish it. How much are they short? $10M ? In the big picture, it would help round out the University's overall reputation and would be a wise investment for the miniscule dollars.

Endowment dollars are almost always restricted, e.g., a $2 million gift that went to the Philosophy department can't go to SFS, etc.

Where there has been some issue is the previous University stance that constuction would only go with cash in hand...but other projects don't seem to be held to the same standard Athletics does.

Mar 26, 2008 19:56:29 GMT -5 @98hoya said:

He isn't a magician, he can't make money appear from nowhere. I'm pretty sure no athletic director in the world could fix the MSF mess.

Here's how: Publicly commit to a date and rally to get it done... and get a naming gift, too.

[RBHoya]

Apr 5, 2008 15:34:00 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Here's how: Publicly commit to a date and rally to get it done... and get a naming gift, too.

I don't mean to sounds so sarcastic and negative, but... really? Do you REALLY believe that would work? IMO there's about a 99% chance that setting a deadline would just result in more humiliation for Bernard and everyone connected with the program.

The problem with that idea is that..... there's nobody to rally! "Rallying to get it done" is a great and very optimistic plan that just neglects the fact that nobody other than a small number of alumni care about the program. Outside of people who played, I'd guess the number of people donating to the program is pretty small. And setting a date and trying to rally people around it isn't going to suddenly make people who don't care (and have never cared) eager to throw down a big chunk of money.

The problem isn't that our fundraising is too slow and lacking focus, it's that not enough people care about Georgetown football to give money to it. We can try to slice and dice the issue a million different ways, but that's what it boils down to. I suspect that Bernard knows this, which is why you haven't/won't see him set a date, and I suspect a lot of the people in the university realize it too, which is why they're not going to throw millions at a project that not a lot of people care about. I don't know a heck of a lot about fundraising, but I do know that if a lot of people support something and show it, people with large chunks of money are more eager to support it too. If there was some big groundswell of support from the alumni community for the completion of the MSF, it'd get done. But there's not, and I don't anticipate it happening any time soon either, unfortunately.

I've spent the last 3 years trying to figure out ways to make the student body care about our football program, and many hours and promotions later, we're right where we started--people show up for the first game, watch us get handled and leave at the end of the first half (or end of the first quarter if it's a good opponent)... skip the next few games to spend saturday afternoons doing something else in D.C., show up again for homecoming to get trashed, and maybe stay for a little of that game too. That's it, that's the pattern. Every year. There's about a handful of students that legitimately care about the football program in a given year, but it's less than 1% of the undergraduate population... LESS THAN 1%... and this is for games that are being played less than a hundred yards from where these people live... I'd venture to guess that an even lower percentage of alumni care about the program, considering that most of them live far away from these games. And if you didn't care about the team when you were an undergrad, why would you care post-grad when you've got jobs and wives and kids a hundred other things to pay attention to?

I hate to sound so negative. But to me it's wrong to reduce the problem to something so simple and act like it's Bernard's fault, or to say that there is something simple he could be doing that would fix the mess. The problems are very, very deep-rooted, IMHO.

[DFW HOYA]

There are three issues at play here and I'll speak to each.

When the initial MSF effort was raised the football alumni came up in a big way. Somewhere about $12M was raised in short order with gifts/pledges from $100 to $5 million. And a lot of that giving came largely outside of Development, which never gave the project the attention it deserved.

Implicit in the giving was Bob Benson's contention that "if you build it, they will come." Benson was adamant that he could not recruit talent to Kehoe Field and the way to build the program was to build a facility capable of bringing recruits to Georgetown.

Enter Bernard Muir. He sees a 10% finished field and a team increasingly getting pounded with little or no scholarship money. In a classic "guns or butter" argument, Muir decided that it doesn't matter where you play if you can't get recruits in the door--hence, the focus has been on building scholarship money and not on the MSF. Kevin Kelly has followed this and has said very little about the MSF as a result.

I don't disagree with the approach but if you have a project sitting out there, either aim to finish it or take it off the table, like the McDonough renovation or the ill-fated track/soccer stadium. You've got a few hundred donors who rightly wonder what happened to their gifts.

The second point is interest. When the MSF talk got going, a lot of people were interested in Georgetown football because it was, well, intersting. It was the kind of product that got people talking. Benson's teams of the late 1990's played a fun brand of football--names like Mont, Belli and Hester on offense, Dwyer, Gallagher, and Speron on defense played an up-tempo style that drew fans. Granted, Georgetown was a big fish in a small pond, but Georgetown averaged 25 or more points a game five straight seasons and people were drawn to that. It's tough to build interest with the style of play that began under Elliot Uzelac and has largely continued with Jim Miceli--a slow, grinding offense that works great when you're up in the fourth, but wholly ineffective down 28-0 after one.

Many of the recruit bios talk about Georgetown going to a more wide open attack and that's a sign of encouragement, beacuse the undersized option is a difficult sell to the paying customers to want to come back for week after week.

As to your contention that 1% of students care about football, well how many truly care about track, or lacrosse, or baseball? I know I swim upsteam on this one, but Georgetown can put too much focus on men's basketball at the expense of other sports. If men's basketball had a seven year stretch like football did (think seven straight 20-loss seasons), you wouldn't have the seashells and balloons either, so winning does cure a lot of ills. But Georgetown absolutely has to get students to invest their interest in more than one team.

How do they do that? Well, to bring this discussion full circle, you show some tangible effort to make the home field a sign of progress. You say to people that there is a future for this project and not a placeholder for the next generation.

[SFHoya99]

While I personally think scholarships are the number one financial impediment to the team's success, they need to raise money for both.

Yes, there are scarce resources, but I don't think it is the school's best interest to have the football program where it is right now. Alienating alums, of no real interest to the average student, etc.

They are going to be starting a new capital campaign soon, right? Football should be part of that -- a successful team that drew would really improve the Georgetown experience for a lot of students.

[LBPop]

To add a slightly different perspective, let me reflect on our experience. I am the father of a graduating player. When our family became part of the football "family" at Georgetown four years ago we heard all of the promises of a new football facility. There were even beautiful artist's renditions posted on the website. However, we were somewhat dismayed by the utterly cynical attitude of the 3 and 4 year parents who just "knew" there was little hope for a new football venue. So we dismissed those attitudes and looked ahead as a "freshman" family. And for a moment, hope emerged.

Suddenly about 18 months later there was construction. There was some beautiful brickwork and field turf--there was hope. Coach Benson's plan to schedule Ivy League teams was taking shape and the future looked bright. And you all know the story. The Hoyas began with a big OT win at Bucknell--there was hope. But eventually Coach Benson lost his job--probably on the day that lowly Davidson came to DC and humiliated the Hoyas. Then Coach Kelly was hired late; he had to quickly assemble a staff; he had to quickly assess what he had; he had to complete a recruiting class; and he had to field a competitive team. They had their moments and they seemed to find a QB and an all star RB. But they lost some games that they should have won and at the end of the season the scoreboard froze up...just like the entire MSF project.

I then heard rumors that Bernard Muir was so embarrassed that he was going to be sure that there was a new, high quality scoreboard in place for next year. Maybe another tangible field improvement and a new team with some senior leadership and a full year with Coach Kelly would renew that hope. We looked forward to 2007 and whenever I visited the campus I was looking for that new scoreboard...it never arrived. None of it arrived. There was nothing new except for a new record for losses in a single season.

So about that conversation. Yesterday I dropped by to see the team scrimmage. I ran into the Dad of a rising junior (an outstanding player, by the way). During our conversation he asked what I thought about the prospects of a new facility and I had become one of those cynical parents that I dismissed four years earlier. I simply said that his son likely had no chance of seeing it before he graduates. And I was skeptical about anything happening even before this year's freshmen graduate. And please don't think for a minute that this makes me happy. If you think I'm giving up, ask yourself why I was among the ten people sitting in the stands to watch the team that my son used to play for.

To get donors there needs to be reason for hope. Of course winning is the real key. The Hoyas need to win...especially against the Marists of the world. But since that hasn't happened for a while, the program needs to at least do some small things to let people know something is happening. A new scoreboard might be nice--the current one is embarrassing. Please don't dismiss that as minor. Everyone including the players look at the scoreboard constantly and it would mean progress (a.k.a hope). A dingy, faded, malfunctioning high school scoreboard sets the tone. And the failure to replace it is just another failure. If Georgetown University cannot pay for a scoreboard, we've got some bigger issues than I realize. And please don't tell me that paying for a scoreboard that might be torn down when the new facility is built would be wasteful. It won't be wasteful to the players that will be on that field for the next four years. And it won't be wasteful when we can put up the names of recruits for them to see when they visit the campus. Other schools in non-scholarship I-AA have been doing that for years.

Each year this University graduates about 10 or 15 former football players with Georgetown degrees, a love of the school and the potential to be serious donors to the program. That means that in just these past four years I have seen about 50 of them leave with little hope. If the program would show them something--something of substance, I think the support would come. That's why there's so little money--sadly there is still little reason for hope.

[AustinHoya03]

Apr 5, 2008 17:06:00 GMT -5 RBHoya said:

The problem isn't that our fundraising is too slow and lacking focus, it's that not enough people care about Georgetown football to give money to it.

I think it's unfair to characterize the current state of the MSF as a football problem.

When Bernard Muir came aboard as Georgetown's athletic director, he made it known that he expected the Hoyas to compete in EVERY sport.

Last I checked, the Multi-Sport Facility is not just a football field -- it's also home to the Georgetown soccer and lacrosse teams. And it is a complete embarrasment.

Given its location and the lack of other athletic facilities on campus, the MSF is the "face" of Georgetown athletics on the Hilltop. When I look at the face of Georgetown athletics, I find myself doubting Mr. Muir's commitment to the other athletic programs.

As DFW points out above, Muir is supporting football (and probably other sports) through less visible means. But those of us who are not Gridiron Club members (which is pretty much nobody, including me) wouldn't know that. And when reunion classes walk through campus in May, most alumni will walk by the MSF and think "Wow, it's just like when I was in school -- non-basketball sports are irrelevant."

[fsohoya]

I'm a grad who lives in the area and occasionally goes to football games, so I'm not immersed in the program but do take an interest. From my vantage point the biggest problem is that there seems to be no clear indication coming from the school about what's going on with the MSF. Will it be finished soon? What does "finished" mean, exactly? Is there a new timeline? This is the most frustrating thing: No one seems to know what's going on, or if they do they're not telling anyone, so the feeling is that the MSF is doomed to a permanent state of incompletion. Why won't someone in the athletic department clearly explain what's going on and what's needs to ha[ppen to get this thing done?

[hoyatables]

Has someone articulated these concerns to the Athletic Department as well as Hoyas Unlimited? They can't respond to questions that haven't been put to them.

[reformation]

Seems like it would make sense for the hoya/voice to do a piece on the
MSF--

[sead43]

i went to a "conversation with the president" event a few weeks back (which only about 7 students bothered to attend) and asked DeGioia about the MSF point-blank.

as far as i can remember, his response was basically two-fold:

1. they're not going to take on more than one major project at once, so don't expect any work on it at least until the business and science buildings are done.

2. part of the hold-up has to do with a decision they made to re-evaluate overall athletic priorities and how the MSF should fit into those. he referred specifically to the potential practice facility where the tennis courts are now as part of the mix. (also said that as of right now, assuming that that eventually gets done, he doesn't foresee much change to mcdonough...not torn down, nor majorly renovated.)

this was a while ago, so let me add the disclaimer that my recollection of his remarks may be incomplete or even slightly off. but to the best of my memory, that was the gist of it.

also, to correct a point above, the MSF is home only to football and lacrosse. soccer uses North Kehoe.

[AustinHoya03]

Apr 11, 2008 1:06:41 GMT -5 sead43 said:

also, to correct a point above, the MSF is home only to football and lacrosse. soccer uses North Kehoe.

I thought soccer used it as a practice field. My bad if that's incorrect.

[hoya4ever]

It's correct, sead43 meant games at Kehoe and practises at MSF.